Traditional foldable viewers are box-type viewers that include a pair of optical lenses locked in one position to view stereoscopic images appearing as slides, film, and/or transparencies. Users hold the viewer up to a light source so that the translucent image can shine through and produce a three-dimensional image. The three-dimensional images are limited by the perspective taken in the transparencies. The foldable viewers were designed to view three-dimensional images from photographic images, not on smart devices.
The conventional box-type viewers were constructed from single cardboard or paper stock with flaps and tabs to fold and form a single end product as box-type viewers. Exemplary of these stereographic viewer are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,175,828, 4,242,818, and 5,894,365. Such designs were a disposable photographic film strip viewer that required a light-emitting opening in the front wall to view illuminating images in stereoscopic perspectives through its lenses. These references discloses a viewer where it is stand-alone product that cannot collapse into a form of mailer or be integrated into product packaging in any way.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,087 A, filed on May 25, 1990 by John Balogh for a ‘Special effect postcard with integral viewer,’ discloses an anaglyphic viewer made from card stock in a form of a postcard, mainly for marketing use. The prior art had two components where one part had an anaglyphic print and the other, defined by perforated demarcation, was a pair of red and blue tinted stereoscopic windows, not with lenses. The drawback of the prior art was its limitation of using prescribed printed anaglyphic image.
Another example of a collapsible box-type viewer configured into a compact size is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,069,735, filed on Dec. 10, 1998 by Murphy. The reference viewer, also for use with photographic images, has a rigid assembly with lateral walls that block off light during viewing and a face plate to hold lenses in proper optical alignment. The advantage of this viewer is its rigid assembly folded to fit inside a cd case. The objective of prior art viewer has a marketing advantage of packaging the viewer with cd products. Such design isolates packaging as a separate entity.
The virtual reality display systems evolve into an electronic deployed head or helmet mounted display that placed a viewing screen in front of the user's eyes and recorded the movement of the user's head to move determine what should be shown on the display. When the head turned to one side, the display was refreshed to show what was in the virtual world in the direction they turned their head. In these systems, the optical lenses are in fixed positions. While image quality of the virtual reality visualization systems have improved, known systems of this prior art have certain drawbacks to the bulkiness of the housing in these virtual reality display systems and require connection to a computer of high-end graphics capability. Exemplary of virtual reality headset is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. D 701,206 S1, for a Virtual Reality Headset, filed on Jun. 4, 2013. While these prior art offer an enhanced immersive experience, the viewers are not integrated with the product packaging or form of mailer.
Virtual reality systems are used for virtual tours, branding, advertisement, entertainment, gaming, art, education, medicine, sport, and training for military, fire, and police. In recent years, virtual reality systems can be viewed on smart devices by downloading software application with virtual reality environment display. This current cardboard viewer is constructed as a single-use end product, a virtual reality viewer.
Prior art devices for use with smart devices, similar to Google Cardboard™, require a smart device and a stereoscopic viewer to operate. Each of these components has separate product packaging and additional shipping mailer that is usually discarded shortly after users receive the intended goods, which can be a waste of resources. Reusing product packages help save trees and reduce use of resources such as water, oil, and energy. In some cases, the byproduct of the packaging cannot be recycled because it contains other non-recycling material and eventually ends up in landfill.
Other prior art devices are the stand-alone unit, similar to Oculus VR, Inc™, that has built-in gyroscope and accelerometer and requires connection to conventional computer to operate. These products can also benefit from this invention. Its product packaging can be folded into an additional pair of stereoscopic viewer for use with mobile smart device.
Prior art for conventional packaging is constructed either for a single-use end product as mailer or as advertising device, but not for multi-functional use as packaging and virtual reality viewer. Exemplary of the conventional boxes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,131,757. U.S. Pat. No. 9,131,757, filed on Feb. 18, 2014 by Chien-Feng Tseng, discloses a packaging box for electronic device as a phone case. The packaging box is a hollow triangular prism with a tray and lid assembly. The tray is attached to a mounting board to house device. The mounting board is shaped to fit the device in lateral or rotated to an upright position. While the prior art meets its objective as a packaging box and a phone case, it is not offered as a virtual reality viewer.
Thus, there is a need for a new form of virtual reality viewing apparatus that facilitates a VR experience that is crafted for everyday use, is configured to be used with mobile applications on a smart device rather than a conventional computer, and that is fashioned out of a mailer, shipping box, or similar product packaging for immediate construction and use by the user.